


Colour My World Red

by ThatScottishShipper



Series: Sheith Soulmate Week 2019 [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Don’t repost to another site, Episode: s02e01 Across The Universe, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Gift Exchange, Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Injury, M/M, Near Death, POV Shiro (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Red - Freeform, Soulmates, World of Colour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatScottishShipper/pseuds/ThatScottishShipper
Summary: Set during “Across the Universe.” As the two Paladins wait for help to arrive, Shiro wonders what the colour red looks like in a world without colour.*Written for the Writing Rainbow Red challenge.*
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Sheith Soulmate Week 2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535456
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27
Collections: Writing Rainbow Make Up Round, Writing Rainbow Red





	Colour My World Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HandmaidenOfHorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/gifts).



Red. Shiro often wondered what Keith’s Paladin colour looked like. He recalled that it was at the end of the visible spectrum of light, a dominant wavelength with various shades from scarlet to burgundy.

Sunsets were supposedly rich in red because of the Rayleigh scattering. As white sunlight carried across the skies, red light left the longest wavelength, surpassing the shorter weave lengths of blue and green.

_ ‘Sounds nice,’ _ Shiro thought, clutching his wounded side.  _ ‘If only I could see it.’ _

He grunted in pain. Thinking about sunsets, and colour theory at a time like this? Stuck on a who-knows-where planet, his sides nearly splitting with anything but laughter? Shiro  _ must _ have been dying.

As his vision faded in and out, side throbbing in agony from his injury, he only just made out the worried words next to him, urging him to “stay awake” and to “hang on.”

_ ‘Oh. Keith. _

_ He’s still here.’ _

Of course he was. The Red Paladin never left his side, always staying close, and never giving up on him even when the galaxy seemed to.

_ ‘Heh. Funny how that works.’ _

The Black Paladin tried to put Keith’s mind at ease, trying to seem more…  _ alive.  _ The young man had enough to worry about without fretting over Shiro’s impending demise, by illness or injury.

Shiro managed a weak smile, but it did little to reassure his friend, who stoked the nearby white flames to keep them burning.

“It’ll be okay, Shiro,” Keith kept trying to reassure him. “We’ll get out of here, just hold on, okay?”

_ ‘How can I not when he’s so… worried about me,’  _ Shiro thought, lost in the almost black suns that were Keith’s eye. The world might have been dull and lifeless, devoid of colour, but the other Paladin’s presence offered some semblance of light.

Red light. Yes, it matched Keith perfectly.

Shiro screwed his eyes shut, flinching as agony seared through him, and he clinged to something, anything, to keep him grounded. His mind raced with associations of the colour red, things he remembered reading in books, or being told by those lucky enough to see the world in colour.

Red. The colour of Mars, rich with iron oxide. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Torii gates. The element of fire. Keith was like ripe strawberries, crunchy red apples, and crisp autumn leaves.

Consciousness dimmed, but Shiro kept going, thinking of all the things Keith was - blood, anger, heat, courage, good fortune. A vibrant source of energy that attracted attention, a light abundant in life.

Daring to open his eyes, Shiro continued, basking in the warmth of Keith’s presence. Red, the colour of passion and heroes, of roses and hearts...

_ Love _ .

And just like that, Keith bloomed.

The first thing Shiro realised was Keith’s eyes. Star clouds existed within the universe’s of those eyes, rendering Shiro speechless. They were no longer dark, but seemed smokey grey until they caught the light, resembling a royal purple dusk with baby stars twinkling above.

_ ‘Yep,’  _ Shiro convinced himself, breathing heavily.  _ ‘I must be at death’s door, if I’m...hallucinating?’ _

Keith’s wild black hair glowed from the nearby fireplace, opening like a fire flower from the dusty ground. As breathtaking as the sight of heat was, nothing held a candle to Keith in that moment, who came to life before him.

He finally saw the red, spreading through Keith’s Paladin armour and into the skies above them, melting into the orange gaseous clouds surrounding the planet. Or was that the sunset?

The Black Paladin gasped, unable to believe what he was seeing.

On the cusp of life and death, Shiro realised that the one thing he thought he might never live to see had happened. His eyes widened, mouth parted, as the world exploded into a carousel of colour he once thought impossible beyond stories and scientific explanations.

A tear trickled down his cheek, his heart bursting with a surge of emotion.  _ ‘It’s him… He’s the one…’ _

Slowly, the new found colours blurred together as his grip on consciousness faded. But as he fell asleep, with Keith desperately urging him to stay awake, that Pidge was coming, one last thought touched Shiro’s mind, and a smile to his lips.

_ ‘Keith’s my soulmate…’ _

**Author's Note:**

> A/N. Written for the Writing Rainbow Make Up challenge for handmaidenofhorror. Prompt was Shiro/Keith, so I picked Red to fit Keith’s role as the Red Paladin and sunsets.
> 
> Then I had a thought revolving around the Soulmates World of Colour AU. What if Shiro couldn’t see colour, and wondered what the colour red was like? He only has the word of others to go by, things that associate with red, but as he lays injured, it gives him comfort, something to hold onto through his longing of Keith.
> 
> There’s been a common headcanon that Shiro realised his feelings for Keith in the S2E1 episode, “Across the Universe,” and this was something I wanted to attempt with the soulmate trope in mind. That when things seemed their bleakest, with Keith by his side trying to comfort him, that’s when he sees his soulmate.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. 🖤❤️


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